This I learned from my son while he was in the Army. There are always cars for sale by other enlisted personnel. My son bought one and paid for it in two payments. He drove it for 7 years. He saved his money and bought a dream car for cash - no car payment. The thing about buying a car on base is you can ask around. People will know whether the car has been troublesome.
He’s still a kid. Feel free to sweeten his deal. If he buys a used honda, you will help him with X. Not a bribe, a guide. He’s still learning. Even: you’d pay cash for it and he can pay you x per month, etc.
Also, show him how he can find the right year used honda, and sell it in three years for basically what he bought. And show him how once he drives his new car off the lot, its worth has dropped by $x. And keeps dropping.
If he is trying to look cool for his friends, ask him if there are other ways for him to achieve that without the Walter white car.
Good luck.... At least he is in the service; he will mature faster than most.
Some quick points:
- Don’t fall for the 0% interest on new cars. Ask what the price would be if you paid cash and I guarantee it will be lower - they’re in the business to make money, not give it away.
- Don’t lease - again, they’re in business to make money.
- New cars lose part of their value the minute you drive them off the lot.
- If you borrow the money to buy a car, you’ll pay up to 30% more by the time it’s paid off.
- As my Dad taught me, you can’t make money trading cars.
My advice to my son and daughter (and they followed it) was to buy something dependable, that you can afford initially (and it might not be much to look at), drive it until it won’t go, and save the amount you would have paid to borrow the money to be able to pay cash for your next car, which, hopefully, will be a step up.
My advice would be to buy a dependable car or pickup truck.Forget sporty coups.if your Stateside for awhile like I was fortunate to be you’ll need it to transport your property between stations.
I would purchase a Subaru outback Station wagon or F150 pickup.
With either one you can’t go wrong.
With the Subaru you even get great acceleration with it.
1.99% at USAA for my wife’s and I’s Sienna. Make sure the kid gets a pickup, SUV, etc for resale value. NO SPORTS CARS....useless if new, insurance kills you, and bad resale value. I had to council my young soldiers into getting vans and trucks for their young families. I told the single guys to even buy trucks or SUVS....used preferably and use USAA for auto insurance.
Being in the Military, you should calculate your cost per mile including the finance charges.
In most cases, you will find out that you could rent a car cheaper than buy even a used car.
I was in the Navy, underway 295 days a year, make sure to calculate the cost per mile and cost per day based only on the days you might actually be able to use the car.
Also, add in the cost of hauling/storage during moves and such.
Do the math, it is a shame to loose 30% of the value just driving the car off the lot, make sure you include the loss in equity in your mat as well for the cost per day and the cost per mile for the first year.
I’m 58 and never buy new anymore.
Last car I bought saved me 10k by getting 2 years old with 8k miles.
First cars always get banged up.
You fly a Minnesota flag and are asking about Texas rules, etc. I assume your son
is in Texas you are in MN.
One suggestion if you or him have any contacts with anyone in the auto business then
maybe a trip or two to some of the auctions will get you a car at a reduced price.
I know rental agencies, Ford, GMAC, Chrysler, etc. sell a lot of their inventory at
auctions. Just a thought.
Most young bloods are looking to 1) go fast and 2) impress girls.
Let him know that classic cars can do both often with just a little bit of work to restore. For example, a Mercedes 300 1980’s ish can be had for less than $5,000. A 2005 Porche Boxter can run for less that $25,000. A 2004 BMW 325 for less than $15,000. And there are lots of others at CarMax.
I would encourage you to clarify WHY he wants a car.
At 16 I asked my dad for a motorcycle. He said yes. I said let’s go find one. He said do you have the cash for it? Later when I worked for the cash, his next question was can you afford insurance?
At 17 I wanted my first car, got identical responses. Wound up buying a 1958 Chevy for $40. Was a great first car, wish I had today.
I tried treating our daughters the same way, this was impossible due to peer pressure and cultural shift.
Anyone believing others can parent today as they were parented has their head in a dark smelly spot. With the cultural shift, school propaganda, the feds making more decisions for us, the media, popular trending against religion & moral values, the social networking, Hollywood, and on and on, it is increasingly less likely we can compete with our parents skills.
Actually, it may be a good lesson to let him buy and pay for a new car. He will or should quickly learn that the flair will dry up in about 2-3 months, and then he is stuck making the higher payments. Most of us have wanted to buy a brand new car at one time or another, and know full well how silly that it, but perhaps he needs to learn now.
This website is a motherlode of long-term reliability ratings. Might come in handy:
4 door 15 year old Japanese or Korean car. Make sure it is 4 door because he will be the defacto taxi driver for his dorm. Don’t finance. Not worth taking on the debt, it will require full insurance, and tougher to unload if he is shipped overseas.
Insurance on a younger male is going to be pretty hefty, stratospheric if the vehicle is a performance model. It’s also going to be higher for a new vehicle as opposed to an older one that has depreciated. Have him look at total cost of ownership.
That said, it’s often “cheaper” month-to-month to buy a new economy car than it is to buy one that’s a few years old, due to special promotional interest rates sometimes as low as 0%, longer terms on financing available for new as opposed to used. Total out of pocket is higher on the new one, though.
Good luck getting someone in their late teens to mid-twenties to see that far ahead, though. Five years is forever to them, and they want their cool stuff now.
My advice would be to pay cash for a reasonably well-kept 90’s era American full-size granny car, cheap to own and operate, not expensive to insure. GM sedans are particularly noted for this, Bonneville, LeSabre, Delta88. Roomy, pretty decent gas mileage. Drive it until it dies, sell it for scrap, repeat.
Ego might not allow him to do this but he’d bank a lot more of his pay.
two words: used honda.
I can tell you as an auto technician that most Automobiles don’t see very many problems at all until after 80,000 miles.
Take a prospective car to an independent shop, and have a buyer inspection done. (don’t go to a competing dealer)
If they won’t even let you do this at your own expense, walk away.
Buy cash and make payments to yourself to go for your next car.
Why pay interest? You end up spending literally twice as much! (that interest could go back to you!)
Listen to your old man, do you have to learn everything the hard way!
I sure wish I had listened to my Dad.
Don’t buy a luxury European car. (unless he has tons of money to burn)
All cars on the road today are used cars.
Buying a car with 25k on it is still like brand new.
Use that little section in the owners manual about scheduled maintenance...it really does matter.